Distributed Systems

Definition: “A distributed system is a collection of independent computers that appears to its users as a
single coherent system.

Characteristics of Distributed Systems

 Autonomous Entities / Partial Failures  No Global Time  No Global Memory  Communication

Errors  Heterogeneity (technical, semantical)  Complex Associations (dynamic bindings, multi-party)

Architectural styles of distributed systems

Architectural styles give you guidance on how to structure your distributed system  Layered
architectures Order your components in layers where calls go from higher-level layers to lower-level
layers.  Distributed objects Expose your components via an endpoint to remote calls  Event-driven
Decouple your components via events that are distributed via an event bus (publish / subscribe)  Data-
centric Use data junks or files as means for coordination, e.g., web-based systems

Middleware
Middleware is the classical means to manage the complexity of distributed systems, but what is
middleware?  Middleware is the software between  …distributed system and operating system (local
view)  …service user and service provider (global view)

Clustering

Aims  Failover  Load-Balancing  Resource Usage  Response Time  Scalabi

Typical Middleware Technologies

Middleware technologies reflect different system requirements!  Implement Web Services by means of
Server Programming Technologies Servlets Spring Boot  .n

SOC = Service Oriented Computing

SOA = Service Oriented Arcitature

What is Software Architecture?

“Architecture is defined […] as the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components,
their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and
evolution.” [interfaces are missing!]  Informally speaking, software architecture is the building plan of
software that describes structure, behavior and guiding principles such as: cross-cutting mechanisms,
programming conventions, build and development practices, concurrency mechanisms
What is Software Architecture Design?

Software architecture design maps the problem domain to the solution domain considering forces and
risks  What are the forces (requirement or constraint)?  Functional  Non-Functional  Infrastructural
 Non-Technical (organization, processes, business case)  Architecture design is about taking
architectural decisions  that have system-wide impact  that affect important quality attributes 
Define a baseline architecture  as complete as necessary for governing subsequent activities  as
simple as possible to ensure it can be communicated

Service

With computer software, a service is software that performs

automated tasks, responds to hardware events, or listens for data
requests from other software.

Another definition for service system states that a service system consists of elements
(e.g., people, facilities, tools, and computer programs) that have a structure (i.e., an
organization), a behavior (possibly described as a business process), and a purpose (or
goal).
SOA Defination
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that
may be under the control of different ownership domains

SOA is a logical way of designing a software system to provide services to either end-user applications or
to other services distributed in a network, via published and discoverable interfaces. A wellconstructed,
standards-based Service Oriented Architecture can empower a business environment with a flexible
infrastructure and processing environment. SOA achieves this by provisioning independent, reusable
automated business process and systems functions as services and providing a robust and secure
foundation for leveraging these services. Efficiencies in the design, implementation, and operation of
SOA-based systems can allow organizations to adapt far more readily to a changing environment.
In practice, the term HTTP is frequently used as synonym of REST … this is a source of misunderstanding
 HTTP is a protocol that you can use to implement REST services BEWARE: You can build RPC-style
services with HTTP, too  REST is an architectual style that may or may not be implemented with HTTP
What is Kubernetes? “Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling,
and management of containerized applications.” (https://kubernetes.io/)

Why is K8s so developer friendly? “Containerization [and therefore K8s as well] transforms the data
center of being machine-oriented to being application oriented.” [BGOBW2016, p.5]

“Kubernetes was built to radically change the way that applications are built and deployed in the cloud.
Fundamentally, it was designed to give developers more velocity, efficiency, and agility